The untold 9/11 stories of ordinary Americans | The Excerpt

On the Wednesday, September 9, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: Mike Kelly, columnist for The Record of northern New Jersey and author of “After Ground Zero,” joins USA TODAY’s The Excerpt to discuss why remembering individual stories matters. Through accounts of victims, survivors, first responders and the "Jersey Girls" who pushed for accountability, he examines how the legacy of 9/11 continues to influence America.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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When columnist Mike Kelly of the Record of northern New Jersey jumped into a tugboat headed for Lower Manhattan that cloudless, bright Tuesday morning, he couldn't have imagined what awaited him on the other end of that journey. Thus began a decades-long journey through the painful scars left in terrorism's wake, stories that are now memorialized in his book, "After Ground Zero: Everyday Americans and the Unhealed Scars of 9/11."

Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/